


Hawkeye

by DarkScales



Series: Children of the Desert [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ishbalan | Ishvalan, Character Study, Ficlet, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 12:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18120575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkScales/pseuds/DarkScales
Summary: For all that her name was Hawkeye, Riza had been far more blind than she’d realized.(A brief introspection piece on Riza Hawkeye, post-Desert Gold.)





	Hawkeye

**Author's Note:**

> An Anon on Tumblr asked, _Prompt: your Ishvalan AU 'verse. Parental!Hawkeye with Ed and Al_. This kind of diverged from that and is more of a short character study than the fluff they probably wanted, oops. Hope you enjoy anyway!
> 
>  
> 
> [Read on Tumblr](http://darkscaleswriter.tumblr.com/post/183369520468/prompt-your-ishvalan-au-verse-parentalhawkeye)

For all that her name was Hawkeye, Riza had been far more blind than she’d realized.

When she’d first laid eyes on the Elric brothers, she’d seen their ages first and everything else second.  Despite being a suit of armor, Al somehow managed to maintain the body language of a child, and Ed—Ed was so  _painfully_ young, for all that he was the elder of the two.  Hawkeye focused on that, on their genius, and let the blazing gold of Ed’s eyes cover up all the other hints that something about them was different.

She hadn’t realized until much later that she’d been ignoring the hiss of windswept sands in her ear when she looked at them, the bone-dry taste of gunpowder and dust.  Hadn’t realized she’d pushed away the implications of the too-pale shade of Ed’s hair, of the dark color of his skin. She’d been pretending not to hear it whenever they thought nobody else was listening and dropped into another language, one she’d only ever learned how to curse in.  Riza had been fooling herself, all this time, and never even known it.

What kind of hawk’s eye was she, that she would delude herself out of her own guilt?

After the kidnapping debacle—after Ed and Al and  _Scar_ of all people saved them, after the truth came out in a way that was impossible to deny—Riza vowed to do better.  The things she’d done in Ishval… she’d never become infamous the same way Roy and the other State Alchemists had, but there was still far too much blood on her hands.  She’d been trying to wipe them clean ever since; now, she’d just have to work harder.

It helped that the Elric brothers didn’t need a mother.  They’d already had one, Trisha Elric, whom they talked about as if she’d hung the moon and stars.  They already had Gracia to fuss over them and worry about if they were being safe, an adopted grandmother back in Resembool to fix up Ed’s automail and Al’s armor.  They didn’t need Riza trying awkwardly to fill any of those nurturing roles, and to tell the truth, she’d never been all that maternal anyway.

The point was, Riza didn’t need to be a mother.  Instead, she lived up to her name, keeping a protective eye over the youngest members of the team.  She was  _Hawkeye,_  and when most people called her that, they thought of a sniper’s nest, the world narrowed down to a pinpoint scope and a finger gentle on the trigger.  They thought of impossible shots at impossible distances, bullets flying, ruthless as the desert wind.

That connotation wasn’t, however, entirely correct.

Now,  _Hawkeye_ also meant drawing attention away from flashes of white hair and red eyes in the shadows of Amestrian cities, nodding approval as Roy dropped careful words to the right people and lightened patrols around the slums.  It meant putting Ed on mandatory medical leave after every mission, injuries or not, so he’d have time to see his family before dashing off again. It meant making herself aware of important dates and customs, difficult as that information was to find, to know when to give Ed a bit more leeway about handing in his reports.  

And, if she sometimes caught sight of a scowling man with a yellow trench coat and a hat pulled low over his face, glaring and lingering near the office… it probably wasn’t important.

(The Scar-Faced Killer investigation was still ongoing, because he’d murdered far too many people for them to not take action, but—well.  Ed and Al didn’t talk about their cousin’s whereabouts, and nobody in the office ever asked.)

The Elric brothers didn’t need a mother.  But. They could use a watcher, so:

That was what Riza Hawkeye would be.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I cannot believe it's been literal years since I first posted Desert Gold. Um. Sorry for the long silence?
> 
> Feel free to come find me on [Tumblr](http://darkscaleswriter.tumblr.com/) for fandom stuff and [Wordpress](https://darkscales.wordpress.com/) for original fiction! I also have a [Pillowfort,](https://pillowfort.io/DarkScales) which is a bit of both.


End file.
